The garden as architecture Form and Spirit in the Gardens of Japan, China, and Korea

•
AS Form and Spirit in the Gardens of Japan, China, and Korea
THE GARDEN ASARCHITECTURE Form and Spirit in the Gardens of Japan, China, and Korea
Tashiro Inaji
KODANSHA INTERNATIONAL Tokyo· New Yark • London
NOTE: Names are given in the traditional manner, surname preceding given name. Macrons are used on all Japanese terms except place names.
JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS
Back (below) KOREA-Kyongbokkung, Seoul.
Originallypublished as Teien tojukyono ariyo tomisekata, miekata: nihon, chugoku; kankoku.Tokyo: Sankaido, 1990.
Distributed in the United States by Kodansha America, Inc., 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011,and in the United Kingdom and continental Europe by Kodansha Europe Ltd., 95 Aldwych, London WC2B 4JF.
Published by Kodansha International, Ltd., 17-14 Otowa 1-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8652, and Kodansha America, Inc.
Copyright © 1998 by Toshiro Inaji. English translation copyright © 1998 by Kodansha International. All rights reserved. Printed in Japan.
First edition, 1998 98 99 00 01 02 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 4-7700-1712-X
Contents
City Plan Prototype and Interpretation: Changan and Heian-kyo 6
Shinden-Zukuri Architecture: Symmetrical Prototype, Simplified Interpretations 10
The Abandonment of Symmetry 10
Architectural Design Solutions That Address Spatial Constraints 12
Prototypes and Interpretations in Shinden-Zukuri Gardens 13
The Six Basic Elements of Garden Composition 17
The Design Process: Stylized Forms (Yo) and Modeling After (Manabi) 22
Garden Design Solutions That Address Spatial Constraints 25
The Garden As Architecture 29
2 Shinden-Zukuri As Prototype, and Two Divergent Interpretations
From Abbreviation to Abstraction 34
Keand the North Garden 34
Hareand the South Garden 38
Decorative Arrangement of the Shotn-Zukuri [odan Zashiki 49
Shotn-Zukuri Gardens and Kana-School Wall Paintings 55
The Threshold of the Garden As Architecture 58
3 Kinetic, Multifaceted Gardens and Miegakure
Miegakure Linking Qualitatively Similar Garden Areas 62
Combined Shain/Sukiya/SoanStructures: Miegakure Linking Qualitatively Distinct Buildings and Gardens 68
The Stroll Garden: Miegakure Linking Qualitatively Different Garden Areas 74
. ·························3
···················32
················61
CHINA
Traditional Chinese Dwellings 83
Climatic Influences 90
............................................................. 83
Ting Yuan, Prototype of the Yuan lin 103
Garden-Related Terminology 106
The Garden Treatise Yuan Ye 108
Private Yuanlin: Compositional Techniques 110
6 Ideology and Prototypes ...................................................... ·········································119
Confucian Thought and Social Structure 119
Prototype of Ting Yuan and Yuanlin-Chinese Landscape Painting Theory 120
Hierarchical Dwelling Composition 127
KOREA
Influences on the Composition of Traditional Korean Residences 132
Location: Factors Based on the Geomantic Principles of P'ungsu 132
Social Status: Factors Based on the Traditional Hierarchical Class System 134
Social Mores: Factors Based on Confucian Principles 137
Function: Factors Based on the Ondol System of Heating 143
Locality: Factors Related to the Dwelling's Locale (Urban Versus Rural) 149
Ch'ae and Madang: Combined Interior and Exterior Spaces 150
Comparison of Korean with Chinese and Japanese Residences 158
8 The "Uncultivated" Garden .
Borrowed Scenery Versus Prospect 163
Prospect and Borrowed Scenery in the Composition of Residences 164
Twitmadang (Rear Garden)-A Private Exterior Space 166
Outer Gardens-The Traditional Form Presented to the Outside World 173
The Pyolso Environment 178
Korean Garden Forms 184
Chronology of Historical Periods in Japan, China, and Korea 188
Glossary 189
(minka) since 1962, particularly in the Kansai, Chubu,
and Tohoku regions, and have continued to follow the
transformations in these homes with great interest over
the years. My motivation was very simple-I was interest­
ed in the question of why these buildings had survived in
Japan. Were minka the only example of buildings that had
retained their original wood-frame skeletal structure from
their construction in the Edo period, through the Meiji
and Taisho eras and the turbulent Showa period into
postwar, modern Japan? And if so, why? My interest
stemmed from a fundamental doubt about modern
methods of designing and building homes, especially the
methods used in multi-storied housing complexes, which
are not designed with a mechanism to allow for later ren­
ovation.
While conducting successive field surveys of Japanese
minka dwellings, I also began to look into the history of
housing. The method which I used, of searching not only
for the underlying structural framework but also its origins,
inevitably led me to adopt another methodology-inves­
tigation of the historical background to the design of resi­
dences. It occurred to me that, by combining the results
of these two different paths of investigation, 1 might be
able to spark an "awareness about housing conditions."
My design survey initially focused on the "interactions
and correlations between people, their possessions, and
their homes." This inevitably resulted in my conducting
thorough unit surveys of homes. The home is something
that exists on the basis of the relationships between a per­
son and the people around him, as well as the many oth­
ers beyond them. Thus, it goes without saying that each
home exists on the basis of its relationship with its imme­
diate neighbors on either side and its more distant neigh­
bors on either side of them.
In 1977, Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music's
Department of Design instituted a new course in environ-
11II viii
mental design, and I was chosen to be in charge of the lec­
tures. One day, during the process of gathering materials
for the course, it struck me that I was unaware of any
research published on the relationship between interior
design and exterior design-between, for example, a rural
home and its garden, or a row ofhouses in a town and the
street outside, or an abbot's quarters in a Zen temple and
the garden adjacent. I hurriedly searched through my
own limited library, but the books on architecture were
concerned solely with buildings, and the books on gar­
dens solely with gardens. I could not find a single plan or
photo depicting the nature of the relationship between
buildings and gardens.
With this, I decided to revisit the many residences and
temples I had visited in the past. In spring, I was over­
whelmed by the profusion of blossoms, and in summer
everything was swathed in lush green. The season when
the form of the gardens was revealed at its most distinct
was in the depth of winter, when ice formed on ponds and
the Zen temples extended an especiallywarm welcome to
the unexpected early morning visitor. I went from place to
place to see how gardens had been juxtaposed with shain
audience halls and abbot's quarters-both the rooms
inside and their verandas-to try to understand the rela­
tion between the way the garden was seen and the way it
was displayed.
Perhaps it is best to say a word here about an aspect of
the Japanese design process-prototypes and their inter­
pretations-that is critical to understanding the composi­
tion of Japanese gardens, so critical, in fact, that it is the
basis upon which I have structured my research.
In general, creation is based on individual originality
that is not subject to external constraints. But in the his­
torical development of the Japanese arts, and particularly
in the development of garden design, the existence of an
"ideal form" takes precedence, thus originality and indi­
viduality manifest within a predetermined framework. The
ideal form is a "conceptual prototype" that is divorced
from a real, physical form.
The process that leads to the creator's "interpretation,"
or design solution, involves observing and recreating a
model, regulated by site conditions and the intended
functions of the space. Over time an endless variety of
interpretations develop for a single prototype.
The prototype and corresponding interpretations found
in the relationship between gardens and architecture also
evolved with tremendous variety. Throughout most of
Japanese garden history, gardens were intended purely for
contemplation, to be viewed from a fixed vantage point
seated at floor-level inside an adjoining building. (The
stroll garden, which the viewer physically enters and
moves through the space, is a relatively late development
in the art.) Accordingly, the relationship between the seat­
ed view and garden composition are integrally linked, and
changed in accordance with changes in the building's
attributes, function and site conditions through the ages.
This relationship is unparalleled in the history of gardens
of other countries and perhaps the most important char­
acteristic in the evolution of Japanese garden forms.
Differing ideological, political and economic condi­
tions from period to period in Japanese history imposed
new constraints on these interpretations, while the proto­
type remained essentially unchanged. Functional aspects
of the architecture and garden along with site conditions
and other constraints of a given period gave rise to "peri­
od" interpretations and led to the formation of "period
garden types." When the techniques created to express
these interpretations outlived the periods in which they
first appeared, they came to be termed characteristically
Japanese garden-making techniques.
The Japanese garden, which. for the most part is not a
place to stroll but a living picture to be viewed by people
sitting inside a building, occupies a special place in the
annals of world gardens. Indeed, its true significance is
Preface
best understood if we consider it as part of a whole that
also includes any paintings, pottery, flower arrangements,
and other crafts displayed in the room from which the
garden is viewed. Together they form a unified space. This
is a unique characteristic without analogy anywhere else
in the world.
The many papers which I wrote on these topics came to
form the basis for the first section of this book, on Japan.
In 1984 and 1985, as a member of a group from the archi­
tecture and designdepartments ofTokyo National University
of Fine Arts and Music, I participated in research trips to
China to conduct surveys ofhousing mainly in Anhui and
[iangsu provinces, and of ting yuan and yuanlin gardens
in Iiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. I returned in 1986 to
survey the circular communal housing of the Hakka peo­
ple centered in Fujian.
However as the saying goes, you can't say you've seen
China until you go to Beijing, and without visiting the
siheyuan residences which are the prototype for Chinese
housing, or the magnificent gardens of the Imperial palaces,
we felt we were missing a vital part of our survey. Bycom­
plete coincidence, in June 1988, I was invited to lecture at
the Beijing Central Polytechnic Institute of Fine Art, and
spent forty days in Beijing. During that period, with the
cooperation of the Institute, I was able to gather material
on housing and gardens in and around Beijing, Chengde
andXian.
In the beginning, I had intended to study the relation­
ship between Chinese gardens and buildings from the
same perspective as I had applied to my earlierstudy in Japan,
but my simplistic expectations were quickly thwarted. I
discovered that, in China, the home and the garden are
unrelated, and that the guiding rule is that a yuanlin gar­
den is seen as a world apart, completely untouched by the
"Confucian order" and the highly regimented form of the
home. The yuanlin, on the other hand, is a world similar
ix III
painting in which eternal time and infinite space are con­
densed. The various papers that I wrote during this period
form the second section of this book, on China.
In 1986, I began a study of traditional Korean residences
and gardens.
At first I was bewildered by what I saw in the site and
floor plans of Korean dwellings. I think now that this was
because I did not understand the unique "conditions" of
Korean architectural environments and was, therefore,
unable to read the plans in a meaningful way. So once
again I started from the basics-that is, extracting the cul­
tural factors that took on architectural form-in this case
Korean geomantic beliefs, the hierarchical system of pre­
modern Korean society, the social customs rooted in
Confucianism, the functional constraints of the ondolsys­
tem of floor heating, and the cross-influences between
urban and rural customs, as well as the historical back­
ground surrounding these factors.
Korea, and this time I was made powerfully aware that
these five basic factors, apart from the rapidly disappear­
ing traditional class system and the Confucian mores of
Choson society, continue to hold great meaning in many
situations today.
Korean residence-both home and garden- is extremely
pure and simple. Some people say there are no real gar­
dens in Korea, at least not as we understand the term.
Nevertheless, there are, and for a long time have been,
spaces that are structured-if vaguely-and that seek
somehow to unify the inside and outside of a building
with the world around it. I had been expecting to find a
strong influence from the Chinese tradition of yuanlin, so
it was refreshing to find something completely different.
In Korea I experienced the joy of discovery. Comparing
~ x
what I saw there with my many years of observing
Japanese gardens, I simultaneously felt skeptical about
what it means to cultivate a garden, and sorry that I had
not studied Korea in greater depth earlier. Though close
neighbors, we remain far apart in many ways. In the third
section, on Korea, I outline four types of traditional
Korean gardens.
out the relationship of homes to gardens in Japan, China,
and Korea, respectively.They do not purport to be a com­
parative study.
I have taken the viewpoint that the relationship between
Japan and China in the early period of import of ideas
and objects from the continent was very much one of a
weaker country borrowing the forms of a more powerful
and developed one, and adapting those forms to a smaller
space to produce something "native." In general, Korean
culture seems closer to that of Japan, there being a sense
that the two countries are separated by only a narrow strip
of water, while the culture of China seems more removed,
as if it came from the far western reaches of the continent.
However, I still find it remarkable just how much the rela­
tionship between homes and gardens in each of these three
neighboring countries differs according to their separate
customs, histories, and lifestyles.
direct field research, and not through methodology alone.
I believe that I always had some key antithesis at the root
of my design surveys.
I carry out all my design surveys with design concepts
as the starting point. By going out into the field, I am able
to expand the horizons of my own limited experiences,
and by objectifying my thoughts, I can construct design
concepts. This is my method of concept formation. I
approach each design survey as an "awareness activity"
that forms the basis of "creative activity" in design work.
This awareness comes from experience, observation, and
deliberation, and is the springboard for creativity. We
sometimes have a tendency to try to turn design survey
results into design techniques. However, I am convinced
that although the formation of concepts through improved
awareness does not always lead directly to creative design,
the best planning and design activity springs from con­
cept formation based on such heightened awareness.
To me, design surveys are an extremely valuable means
of concept development, since they are the springboard to
posing a question and starting to form a hypothesis. The
value of the research described in this publication as I see
it, is to seek answers to the questions related to high-den­
sity urban housing in the modern world and how to cre­
ate a more pleasant environment for urban residents.
My colleagues have given me great support in the prepa­
ration of this publication. I am indebted to Professors
Mogi and Katayama for their advice and cooperation, and
to the members of their respective laboratories, and the
members of my own research lab at Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts and Music, for their assistance in
executing the many drawings for this publication, and for
the additional assistance of the Chinese and Korean
exchange students in my department in compiling mate­
rials-particularly Ms. Kim Hyonson and Ms. Shin Iulee,
Preface
I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all.
In conducting surveys and collecting research material
I received invaluable assistance from many members of
the Chinese Society of Architects in various regions, and
from the staff of the Beijing Central Polytechnic Institute
of Fine Arts, particularly Zhang Qi-man and Qi Ai-guo,
associate professor and lecturer respectively at the same
institution, with research and interpretation. I am grateful
to the staff of the Graduate School of Environmental
Studies at Seoul National University for making available
many valuable materials, and for their kind guidance. I
am also indebted to the Office of Cultural Properties for
its cooperation in my visits to several important sites. My
warmest thanks go out to the numerous people in China
and Korea who cooperated in my research.
For their expertise and invaluable advice over the course
of preparing the English text, I would like to thank Hugh
Wylie and Wonyoung Koh of the RoyalOntario Museum,
LeeChi Woo of the Korea Cultural Serviceat the Embassy
of the Republic of Korea in Tokyo, Alain Coulon, Kim
Hyo Keun, Kirstin McIvor, and Edwin Whenmouth. I
would also like to pay tribute to my editors Shigeyoshi
Suzuki and Elizabeth Ogata at Kodansha International.
And finally I would like to express my gratitude to Pamela
Virgilio for her painstaking work in the translation and
adaption of the Japanese text for the English-speaking
reader-I trust her understanding of the material com­
pletely.
M ount Miwa in Yamato (present-day Nara Prefec­
ture) is a sacred mountain, thought to be manifest­
ed spirit according to the indigenous animistic religious
beliefsof Shinto. Pre-Nata-period Shinto (pre-645) focused
on nature worship in sacred sites-roped-off clearings
surrounding unusually-shaped mountains, trees, rocks,
waterfalls and other natural phenomena. The present
Omiwa Shrine at the base of Mount Miwa consists of only
a torii gate marking the entrance to the sacred grounds
and a haiden, or worship hall, reminiscent of the early
Shinto sites which lacked an architectural structure to
enshrine kami, or spirit (Figure 1).
Mount Miwa is covered with primeval forest, revered
and untouched from protohistoric times. Roped -off areas
of old cryptomeria trees and clusters of rocks designated
as himorogi and iwakura respectively-trees and rocks
inhabited by divine spirit-have the appearance of play­
grounds or "gardens" for kami. These iwakura megaliths,
whether left untouched as nature set them or artificially
clustered to create ritual spaces, cannot really be called
gardens, but their playful grouping is in close accord with
the guidelines for "setting stones" in Sakuteiki (Notes on
garden making), the earliest known written document on
Japanese garden making:
distinct character, and then proceed to set other
stones complying with the "requesting" mood of the
principal stone ...
The stones placed at the foot of the hill or in the
hillside plain should resemble a pack of dogs crouch­
ing on the ground, or a running and scattering group
of pigs, or else a calfplaying nearby the seated mother
cow.
Stones thus placed may resemble, for example, chil­
dren playing tag.'
The arrangement of rocks on sacred Mount Miwa is not,
ofcourse, the rock composition of a garden. However, with
the gradual rearrangement of natural clusters of stones, the
ancestral form of the Japanese garden began to emerge
(Figures 2.1-2.3), This concept of natural order had devel­
oped more than four hundred years before it was expressed
in the mid-eleventh-century Sakuteiki as "... set]ting]
other stones complying with the 'requesting' mood of the
principal stone." Among the unique characteristics of
31111
Japanese gardens, which this book will attempt to define,
this concept forms the foundation of and is seminally
linked to the historic development of garden making in
Japan through the present day.
Attributed to Tacbibana no Toshitsuna (A.D. 1028­
1(94 ), a Heian-period aristocrat accomplished in land ­
scape garden design, Sakuteikihas long been regarded as a
classic on the art of…